SANKAR VENKATANARAYANAN (SHANKAR)
User Experience Strategist, UX Consultant and Design Leader-- -
https://greatshankar.my.canva.site/profile
SUMMARY
Highly accomplished Design Leader with over two decades of experience in user experience strategy, problem-solving, and high-level strategic planning for business and product development. Proven expertise in translating complex business challenges into user-centric design solutions through comprehensive research.
Key Achievements & Impact:
Drove Customer Loyalty: Elevated Net Promoter Scores (NPS), significantly enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty across market projects.
Optimized Development Cycles: Spearheaded the creation of an indigenous design system, reducing development efforts by up to 30%.
Ensured Usability Excellence: Led usability testing initiatives for various projects, with most achieving System Usability Scale (SUS) scores.
Scaled Impact: Positively impacted over 500 million users through strategic design initiatives.
Fostered Design Culture: Built, mentored, and led high-performing teams of product designers, researchers, front-end developers, product owners, and project managers. Championed design capabilities and human-centric approaches across organizations, including leading design promotion events and workshops.
Global Client Engagement: Delivered impactful UX solutions for diverse global clients, including PayPal, Ramboll, Bank of New York Mellon, India’s largest bank, a major fertilizer company from Africa, and a prominent payment company in Saudi Arabia.
Core Competencies: Design Leadership & Consultancy | Design Strategy Formulation | Qualitative & Quantitative Research | Project Management | Systems Thinking | HCI Principles | People Management | Design Thinking | User Experience Design | UX Strategy
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
Academic
Master’s in business administration (Professional (Business Administration))
Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tamil Nadu, India
Certifications and Licenses
Human Computer Interaction for AI Systems Design
University of Cambridge
Digital Transformation: 5 Game-Changing Technologies for Business
Imperial Collage of Business School, London
Transformational Leadership
XLRI, Jamshedpur, India
HFI
Human Factors International, Mumbai
Lean UX Training
Proof (Jeff Gothelf, Josh Seiden)
Creative Thinking and Problem Solving
IIT – Bombay
Diploma Courses
Diploma in Information System Management
Aptech Computer Education, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu, India
Diploma in End User Computing
First Computers, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu, India
CAREER
Sep 20 Onwards Ramboll India Private Limited, Head of UX
Built and defined an innovative UX team culture from the ground up, empowering members while adding business value.
Managed top-level stakeholders, influencing a human-centric approach across all client touchpoints.
Conceptualized and built an in-house design system, reducing development efforts by up to 30% and accelerating digital product delivery.
Defined and implemented design principles to benchmark product design and development.
Promoted designers and empowered them to independently lead large initiatives and projects.
Implemented metric-based design solutions, driving continuous product improvement and increasing business value.
Conducted successful Design Workshops, delivering MVPs and PoCs.
Increased NPS scores for market projects through qualitative and quantitative research initiatives.
Hosted Design Events, workshops, and talk shows to promote a design-centric approach, generating new business and enhancing team knowledge.
Proactively developed value propositions for market segments to influence business decisions and drive positive digital transformation.
23, Jun 16, 14 Aug 2020 IBM India Private Limited, Associate Design Director (Application Consultant), India
Managed projects, teams, business promotion, and stakeholders, while mentoring junior designers.
Executed design research, contextual inquiries, user persona creation, empathy mapping, and high-level design strategy.
Delivered metric-based design solutions for major clients across India and abroad, ensuring product success.
Led design for India's largest bank's mobile application, impacting over 400 million users and becoming a leading product in the Indian banking industry.
The app achieved over 2.2 million reviews with ratings of 4.3 (Android) and 3.8 (Apple Store).
Managed multiple workshops, persona creation, journey mapping, Information Architecture, prototyping, and usability testing for features.
Oversaw 20+ designers, churning over 3500 mobile screens in 8 months.
For an African fertilizer company project, contributed from Business Model Canvas creation, conducted stakeholder interviews, and performed qualitative and quantitative user research.
Created personas, journey maps, and prototypes; conducted usability tests achieving a good SUS ratings
Successfully managed 2+ designers and 2+ digital strategists, delivering the project in 4 months.
Led design for payment projects, starting with stakeholder and user interviews, and conducting secondary research to strategize solutions.
Created affinity maps, personas, journey maps, and prototypes, conducting A/B tests
Managed project delivery within 2 months.
Collaborated closely with developers on intricate details and provided mentorship and management to designers.
Responsible for building strategic design direction and experiences across all digital channels.
15, Apr 13 to 20 Jun 16Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon - iNautix) Lead - Usability, Chennai, India
Developed and executed user research and usability testing plans, conducted sessions, and meticulously documented results and recommendations for both internal and external client-facing applications.
Led the UX team responsible for high-volume transaction applications.
Created intuitive applications, significantly enhancing flow efficiency, reducing errors, and improving accessibility and security.
Curated a centralized online library of design patterns, standards, and implementation examples for our application design and development teams.
Successfully increased user satisfaction and ensured adherence to industry standards.
Handled major MVPs, PoCs, and projects, which involved creating personas, information architecture, and wireframes for various BNY Mellon projects.
Championed UX across the organization through engaging workshops and induction training.
Emphasized the importance of design strategy and emerging trends, demonstrating their applicability to brand and product planning.
Responsible for hiring, managing, and mentoring global UX designers.
Shared user research reports with top management to inform and define organizational project priorities.
Successfully won over challenging stakeholders by presenting convincing design solutions, wireframes, and prototypes.
15, Nov 07 to 02 Apr 13CSC India Pvt. Ltd, Associate Manager, Chennai, India
For PayPal India Pvt. Ltd., Sr. UX Designer, Chennai, India
Crusader for selling, instituting, and evolving a user-centred design (UCD) methodology into our product and software development life-cycle.
Engaged in brainstorming sessions discussing ideas and enforcing accessibility methods.
Producing wireframes and writing interaction behaviours for various risk- and merchant-related projects. Co-ordination with the user research team to get insights and validated assumptions. Received cash award for successful completion of the project that enhanced user satisfaction in multiple parameters.
Used various methods of design sprints, lean UX, and agile in projects.
15, Dec 06 to 9, Nov 07NOUS INFOSYSTEMS PRIVATE LTD., Bangalore, India
Sr. Web / UI Designer
15 Aug 04 to 09 Dec 06REACH Sewn Technologies and Consulting Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore, India
Web/UI Designer, Team Lead with responsibilities of:
Sep 02 to Aug 04SRI4 TECHNOLOGIES PRIVATE LIMITED., Chennai, India (Reliance Tech. Inc., California, USA)
Senior Web Graphic GUI Designer with responsibilities of:
